July–November 1938
The Battle of the Ebro was the Spanish Republic's last throw of the dice. On the night of July 24-25, Republican forces made a brilliant river crossing and drove deep into Nationalist territory. But Franco refused to be diverted — he fed in reserves and used his air superiority relentlessly. As the Munich Crisis resolved in Hitler's favor in September, the Republic's last hope of foreign intervention evaporated. By November, the exhausted Republic had lost 75,000 killed or captured. The road to Barcelona lay open.
Commanders